The Report Card

The Report Card issues grades A through F, and incompletes where necessary, to a variety of news items in this space. Got an idea that makes the grade? Send it to JBuchanan@CITIZEN-TIMES.com

Reader grades

A to the Ingles at 29 Tunnel Road (right by the tunnel) and the store manager Lynn Owenby. This Ingles store has installed a handicapped counter at the customer service desk. It is just wonderful. The desk is now wheelchair height so that the disabled can be accommodated and given the services that the other customers have. Such a simple solution I do hope that all the other Ingles will do the same and comply with the American Disability Act to make all parts of the store equally accessible.

Florence Bannon, Asheville

F to Duke Energy for continuing to harm our community. Agreeing on a settlement with the state that is a false solution to a huge problem. Currently the coal ash lagoons are leaking a toxic mixture of heavy metals into our ground water and into the French Broad River. The settlement makes no point that Duke Energy must create a cleanup plan, it only states that they must continue to study and collect data to see if they really are polluting our community. We know they are. This is a fact. Not only that, but with H.B. 74 passed through the state Senate it makes it even easier for Duke Energy to get away with polluting our streams and rivers.

Eva Westheimer, Swannanoa

Staff grades

A to Western Carolina University psychology professor Harold Herzog, winner of the 2013 Distinguished Scholar Award from the International Association of Human-Animal Interaction Organizations and the International Society for Anthrozoology. Herzog was honored for his work toward understanding animal-human relationships and interactions. A widely published author - his book, "Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight about Animals," has been translated into nine languages - Herzog's research has ranged from the vocal communication system of alligators to studies of the psychology of animal activists to the factors that fuel rapid shifts in dog breed popularity.

A to Warren Wilson College archaeologist David Moore for his work uncovering Fort San Juan in Burke County - believed to be the oldest European garrison in the interior of the continental United States. Moore has been digging for clues in the Catawba River valley for 30 years. This summer, he and his colleagues struck pay dirt on a farm off Highway 181, locating the moat and palisade wall surrounding the fort. The site was abandoned 20 years prior to the founding of the famed Lost Colony on Roanoke Island. The fort was the largest garrison in a trail of six that stretched from the South Carolina coast over the Appalachians to the French Broad River and as far west as modern-day Knoxville. But the Spanish only stayed about a year and a half before the Indians violently forced them off their lands. Thus Moore and his colleagues are helping to rewrite history texts. "That's the cool thing about archaeology or any science. If you have your blinders on, you can't learn new things," Moore said.

D to what is shaping up as the world's most expensive possum, the star of the New Year's "Possum Drop'' in Brasstown. An administrative law judge agreed with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals last year that the annual 'Possum Drop" New Year's event in Brasstown was cruel to the varmint, and the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission did not have the legal authority to issue a permit for it. Wildlife Resources appealed that decision, but Wake County Judge William Pittman called that appeal frivolous and ordered the state to pay PETA $74,446 in legal fees. Jeffrey Kerr, general counsel for PETA, said "The entire appeal from start to finish was entirely baseless, but it takes time and effort to lay that out and prove it in court. The WRC acted horribly, first when it issued the permit for drop with no legal basis, as (the administrative judge) found. Then they filed a bogus appeal that had no basis in fact of law and stuck the taxpayer with the bill." Not the best use of state funds at a time when we're dropping, no pun intended, thousands of teacher's assistants. Speaking of money not well spent?

F to U.S. Agriculture department for sending millions of dollars in subsidies to farmers. Dead ones. The New York Times reported Tuesday that from 2008 to 2012, The Natural Resources Conservation Service shelled out $10.6 million to more than 1,000 people who died more than a year prior. The outfit that manages crop insurance, The Risk Management Agency, topped that with $22 million in payments to more than 3,400 people who had died at least two years prior.

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The Report Card

The Report Card issues grades A through F, and incompletes where necessary, to a variety of news items in this space.